Tag Archives: Flowers

It’s been a while since our last trip to Wisconsin to see Mike and Sara (April of 2015!), so Lynn and I were excited to spend a week with them at the beginning of August. We were also quite happy to finally get to meet Avon – who is (probably) a mountain cur that they adopted from a rescue society. He’s a real sweet dog!

I didn’t realize how big of a crop Sunflowers are in Wisconsin. And fortunately for us, the beginning of August is peak bloom time. In fact, Bergsbaken Farms near Cecil Wisconsin was having a Sunflower Fest while we were there so we stopped by.

Riding in the rain through the sunflower fields

Even though it was a bit rainy that day, there was still a large crowd and we enjoyed seeing the seemingly endless fields of flowers. We also saw a few strange creatures:

Strange creature seen in Wisconsin field

There were several of these tall, happy looking beings along one of the paths through the field. Authorities didn’t respond to questions on where they came from or why they wore sunglasses in the rain. One of my Flickr friends commented: “A nice guy no doubt, but a little seedy, wouldn’t you agree?” Yes, I do agree!

I find western landscapes extremely appealing. Maybe it’s just that they’re so different from Florida. When I saw these mountains, I made MK pull over so I could make this image.

Volcano Cinder Cone. IR, B&W, 3 frame panorama

This is a view of one of the three Volcanoes visible from the Volcano Day Use Area in Petroglyph National Monument, a little west of Albuquerque. When I got back to the car, I realized I’d dropped a lens cap somewhere along the path. I did go back and look for it and of course, couldn’t find it. Does that happen to you too?

Lynn’s been busy in our back garden and suddenly it’s even more photogenic. Lots of new plantings / flowers and they’ve attracted some interesting visitors. I’ve been keeping a camera at the ready so I can go out quickly and see what’s happening.

This blue bit is the stamen – I like this composition more than one I made of the entire flower. I left a small piece of the rest of the bloom in the bottom left of the frame for context.

Bees and Butterflies seem as happy with the new garden as I am.

Bumblebee in flight (BIF) (Olympus E-M1 II Pro Capture mode)

Gulf Fritillary butterfly

I briefly spotted some Ruby-throated Hummingbirds too. But in my excitement to let Lynn know, I let go of the screen door too quickly and the noise was enough to drive them off. I’ll be more careful next time and hopefully get some photos of them as well.

I’m very lucky that Lynn has set up such nice photo ops for me! I can’t wait to see what else she arranges in front of my lens.

Thanks for stopping by and reading my blog. Now – go make some photos!

Lynn mentioned she’d like to spend a night or two in St. Augustine and I readily agreed. It’s one of my favorite, must do photo ops. She made reservations at a Bed and Breakfast (http://www.44spanishstreetinn.com) just behind the Columbia Restaurant and we headed up there last weekend.

I’d been feeling a little sick, although not bad enough to cancel the trip. I was looking forward to going back to Marineland Beach (earlier posts here and here) and perhaps the Alligator Farm (many posts here).

We arrived mid-afternoon on Saturday and checked in. It was a lovely place and extremely convenient. Strolling around town before dinner, I warmed up my camera with a few photos including the one above.

I woke up feeling worse on Sunday morning and decided to sleep in. We were staying one more night and I figured I could always do sunrise the next morning. After a wonderful french toast breakfast and some cold medicine, we set out to explore on the Old Town Trolley. We’d never done that before and I was glad we did this time. Riding the entire route, we got to locations we hadn’t seen on previous trips. It was also very nice to just sit there and still be able to make some images. My energy was very low and I was indisposed to walking around.

Est. 1875

I had a small camera bag with me, and shot mostly with my infrared camera. I like the way it rendered the old buildings. It was out and ready when I noticed this fellow riding in front of the Castillo de San Marcos National Monument.

Infrared bicycle pirate – commuting to work?

I tried searching for ‘infrared bicycle pirate’ photos on both Google and Flickr and didn’t find any. Apparently they’re a very rare genre. Perhaps I should specialize.

Monday morning came with my symptoms getting worse and once again I couldn’t get up for sunrise or even make it to the Alligator Farm. I guess that means we’ll have to schedule another trip. I’m feeling a better as I write this and hope I won’t have to go to the doctor tomorrow.

I’m happy I made a few images I like. If you’re sick (indisposed) fight your lack of desire (indisposition) to make photos. You can look at other photos from St. Augustine in this folder on Flickr.

Happy Easter and thanks for stopping by and reading my blog. Now – don’t be or get indisposed – go make some photos!

I went for another walk last week at Orlando Wetlands Park with Tom M. It was a pretty morning and in addition to the normal bird suspects, we also saw Soras, Purple Gallinules, and heard reports of Bald Eagles and many Black Crowned Night Herons.

“Compositing is the combining of visual elements from separate sources into single images, often to create the illusion that all those elements are parts of the same scene.”

Multiple exposures are a subset of compositing, and are much easier to produce in today’s world of digital photography. In addition to creating an illusion, they can be used to show things that are difficult for a camera to capture in a single frame and better show reality. Examples are panoramas, focus stacking, HDR, etc.

There’s a lovely Pink Trumpet tree on the west side of the main path into the park. It’s in bloom and that morning the moon was setting behind the tree. This snap from my iPhone shows how the tree looked against the sky and moon.

Moon behind Pink Trumpet tree

I wanted to isolate one bloom with the moon and clouds behind it, but the depth of field with my telephoto lens was too shallow to show both in the same frame. So I made two, with one focused on the flower and the second on the clouds / moon. Then in Photoshop it was relatively easy to combine the two frames to show what I wanted.

Moon, clouds, and flower

Here’s a second example:

Ibis flight sequence

This one is from a sequence of a single White Ibis flying by in a little under 2 seconds. I brought all 25 frames into Photoshop on separate layers and aligned them. Then I used the focus select function to mask the birds from each layer into a single composite. I ended up having to omit every other frame to avoid overlapping birds.

If you’re willing to dive into Photoshop or any other image editing software that offers layers and masking, you can do the same sort of work. Think about techniques like these when you’re out photographing. If you capture the source frames you need when you’re out, then when you get back to your computer you can use them to solve problems and enhance your creativity.

Thank you for stopping by and reading my blog. Now, go make some multiple exposure photos!

Just 35 miles from Los Angeles, the Santa Monica National Recreation Area is an escape from the bustle of the city. We headed to the Anthony C. Beilenson Interagency Visitor Center for some orientation (and souvenir shopping), and did the short but steep hike up to Inspiration Point. We saw lizards and birds along the way, and the dry landscape made for dramatic views against the Santa Monica Mountains:

Plant at the Pinnacle

That Saturday, we took a morning boat trip out to Anacapa Island – the smallest of the Channel Islands – with a company I’d highly recommend: Island Packers. For just $29 each way, the beautiful boat ride alone was worth the trip. On our way to Anacapa, we enjoyed stunning views of Oxnard Harbor, a few Harbor Seals “sunning”, and even an illusive Minke Whale (he was too quick to photograph and never came back up).

Seal Reflections

The Channel Islands are truly a magical place, sometimes called the United States’ Galapagos Islands because there are 145 species of plants and animals only found there. We stayed 3 hours on the island exploring, seeing as much as we could, and eating the picnic we brought, but there are many arrival/departure options so you can stay as long as you’d like (or even camp over – although the smell of pigeon poop was rather strong!).

Anacapa Lighthouse

I also enjoyed playing with the fish eye lens I borrowed from my Dad – I thought it brought an interesting perspective to the Island.

Channel Islands National park Sign

On our way back to land, we had the treat of a humpback whale doing acrobatics for us: for about 10 minutes we watched him partake in “pectoral slapping” – spinning back and forth and slapping his fin on the water – quite the site juxtaposed against a giant oil rig in the background.

Man vs. Whale

If you ever find yourself on the West Coast, it’s definitely worth the trip out to the Channel Islands (and a hike over in the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area). It’s amazing to find so much nature near such a large metropolitan area. Check out the other photos from my trip in this flickr album (including a life bird: the Rock Wren!).

Thanks for stopping by and reading MaryKate’s blog post. Now, go make some photos!

There were butterflies everywhere, probably because wildflowers were everywhere. We had a marvelous little meadow under the balcony behind our room. It was fun and relaxing to sit there and watch all the activity.

Swallowtail

Bees and birds were busy too.

Wildflower and Bee B&W

We stood in line for the dining room at the lodge one night and the woman in front of us was carrying a large DSLR camera and lens. She lived close by and had come up to photograph butterflies in Big Meadows. I said we were enjoying them too, and then we started talking about birds. I was all excited about the Indigo Buntings and American Goldfinches we’d sighted, since we don’t often see them in Florida. She didn’t seem to care about such common birds – and was much more interested in getting to Florida to see some Spoonbills. To each their own!

And one more image to wrap up. I made all the photos in this post with a micro four-thirds camera and 100 – 400 mm lens (200 – 800 mm equivalent). I found it very useful for close up photography and even though I had a macro lens with me, I never used it.

Wildflower 3

You can see larger versions of the photos above by clicking on them and more photos from Shenandoah in this album on Flickr.

Thanks for stopping by and reading my blog. Now – go make some photos!

Our visit to Shenandoah National Park this year was extremely enjoyable (mentally not physically!) relaxing, and cooler than back here in Central Florida (highs there in the 70s). It was also interesting from a photography perspective and different from last year’s trip. I did a lot of sunset / night photography and didn’t try very hard to get up early every morning for sunrise.

We were fortunate with seeing conditions on the night we arrived. There were no clouds, and the Milky Way center was above the horizon for about two hours after moon set. Shenandoah has dark skies and the large cleared meadow near the lodge provides wonderful views all around the compass. Lynn hadn’t ever really seen the Milky Way before and I’ve never seen it this well. We were both amazed, and I was also impressed with how much detail my Nikon D800 was able to capture.

Lynn is a big fan of meteor showers, and due to a gravity assist from Jupiter, the Perseid was predicted to be spectacular this year. We set the alarm for 1am the night it was forecast to peak and went out to watch. The area around Big Meadows was crowded with over a hundred people watching the show, and each overlook had cars parked with more people observing. It was a good show. Here’s one of my photos from that morning.

A Perseid Meteor and a cloud in front of part of the Milky Way and the Andromeda Galaxy – From Old Rag View Overlook on Skyline Drive in Shenandoah National Park. 24mm lens, manual focus and exposure, ISO 3200, f/1.8, 20 seconds.

I tried sunset photos on most nights. The sky wasn’t as dramatic as I’ve seen it in the past, but there were many wildflowers in bloom helping to make up for that.

The end of the day – Looking out over Shenandoah Valley from Skyline Drive. The wildflowers were beautiful when we were there. Two frame composite, manual masking in Photoshop.

And storms also added interest. We watched this one develop from the balcony outside our room at the lodge.

Shenandoah Storm – A storm built up to the west at sunset. As seen from our balcony at Big Meadows Lodge in Shenandoah National Park. Multi-frame panorama.

Dark Hollow Falls is one of the most popular places in Shenandoah. When we drove by on Sunday, the parking area was overflowing with cars. We waited until the next morning to hike down. Last year, I didn’t make it to these falls and used one of my 20-year-old photos to illustrate it. For some reason, the hike (especially the return up from the falls) is more difficult than it was when I was 20 years younger. Hmm – I wonder why? This is from very near the same place, and a horizontal, wider view. I like this one too.

We did a bit more hiking this year than last and went on trails we hadn’t tried before. Rose River Falls and Black Rock Mountain were two new favorites. Another one we hiked was Pocosin Trail. It was interesting, although I didn’t like it as much as the others. Maybe it was because of one sentence in the trail guide: “Soon the trail flattens.” It never did!

You can see larger versions of the photos above by clicking on them and more photos from Shenandoah in this album on Flickr.

Thanks for stopping by and reading my blog. Now – go make some photos!

I have many “out of Florida” photos to share with you today from Utah. MK wanted to take a short sightseeing trip out there over the 4th of July weekend and asked me to be her travel buddy. Of course, I couldn’t turn that down! Last year on my trip out west , I passed up seeing Zion and Bryce Canyon because I wanted more time in Death Valley National Park. I’m glad I got to go back.

Flowers at daybreak – Cedar Breaks National Monument. We visited this beautiful place twice. The second time before dawn, when we were the only ones there.

Because this was my first time there and our visit was so short, I’m going to write more of a “travel log” instead of a “what and where they are and how to photograph them”. I wouldn’t try to write that until I was way more familiar with the area. I will say that it is spectacularly scenic and if you get a chance, just go. You’ll find all sorts of things to point your camera at.

The first place we visited was Cedar Breaks National Monument. It was a surprise to me – I hadn’t really heard of it before. It’s very scenic and has a lot of wildlife too. We saw many deer on the trip. Unfortunately, there were several on the side of the road – we watched carefully to make sure we didn’t hit any.

Morning deer

We actually went by Cedar Breaks twice. The second day, we left early to find a sunrise spot and ended up there. By ourselves – magnificent!

Sunrise at Point Supreme – Cedar Breaks

We were walking through the visitors area and I was looking around in the trees trying to find the bird making a very strange call I didn’t recognize. A nice German gentleman came up to me and pointed out the Marmot that was making the racket. A bit embarrassing – but I did get a photo.

Yellow Bellied Marmot

Our bird watching was casual, but I did record one new life bird.

Mountain Bluebird – These were quite common at Cedar Breaks National Monument

One other place we wandered to was Brian Head Peak – a very scenic ski town. You can tell from the first photo and this one that there were lots of wildflowers blooming – a beautiful bonus!

Flowers by the road to the top – On the way up to 11,000 feet at Brian Head Peak, Utah

1 epic father-daughter Utah road trip! We were so very tired when we got home!

What a terrific trip – thank you MK! I’m still going through the photos and adding favorites to my Utah album on Flickr. You can take a look there if you want to see more. And click on any of the photos in this post to see a larger version on Flickr.

I’ll work on a post with photos from the other spots next week. Until then, thanks for stopping by and reading my blog. Now, go make some photos!

Lynn and I drove over to the Suwannee River west of Gainesville, Florida last week and stayed for a couple of nights at Fanning Springs State Park in one of their cabins.

Into the Suwannee River – The Manatee Springs run into the Suwannee.

It turns out that April is peak season for Fireflies, at least around here. It’s been many years since we’ve seen any and it was a treat to watch them. On the second night, I set up my camera on a tripod and used the remote control app on my phone to make this photo from the mosquito free comfort of the screened porch at the cabin.

Fireflies 2 – I used my Olympus E-M5 Mark II in Live Composite mode. This is an ~11 minutes total exposure, with ~330 frames at 2 sec, f/2.8, ISO 1600 each. Composited in camera.

We saw other wildlife too, including lots of birds and a few Gulf Sturgeons jumping in Fanning Springs. I managed to catch this snake swimming through the high water at Manatee Springs with my iPhone.

Florida Brown Water Snake – Manatee Springs, Florida

It’s a great time of year for a drive in Central Florida too. We enjoyed the beautiful wildflowers blooming along most of the roads.

Train Track Wildflowers – Next to the Williston, Florida Train Depot

And the farms in the Ocala area along our route are both scenic and idyllic.

Greener Pastures – A cattle ranch near Ocala, Florida

Fanning Springs and Manatee Springs are about 7 miles apart along the Suwannee. Both offer kayaking, and swimming (usually), and many other activities. High water at Fanning closed the swimming when we were there, but Manatee was open.

You can rent kayaks and canoes, and if you put in at Fanning, you can coast with the current down to Manatee. There’s a service that will return you back to your starting point. This sounds like a relaxing paddle to Lynn and I and we plan to try it next time. We’ll have to watch out for the jumping Sturgeons, though. There’s also a pontoon boat tour you can take from the concession at Manatee.

Thanks for stopping by and reading my blog. Now – go enjoy some Florida State Parks and make some photos too!